Planning on opening a cofee shop sometime down the road. I have an apartment building which I'm converting the 1st floor into a coffee shop.

I've chosen the two models based on the servicing available.

Since I'm located in Thailand, the drinks served will most likely be 70-80% cold drink varities based on milk.Forecast of around 150-200 cups per day during the initial months of opening, 2 group might be overkill but if business picks up I think 1 group will be too slow. Most of the small coffee shops here like to buy 2 small 1 Group machines in order to save cost.

Go with the one that has the BEST servicing available, the one that the vendor treats you best. There is little difference in quality with commercial machines and a business depends on service and the ability to get your problem fixed YESTERDAY.

In real life, my name isWayne P.Anything I post is personal opinion and is only worth as much as anyone else's personal opinion. YMMV!

Wayne is giving you great advice here. I had a coffee shop many years ago and the machine we chose was based on the best service contract/support we could find at the time. It happened to be an Astoria and worked well for us but... There are many choices today and a working machine is your constant. As for the number of groups, two rather than one would be my choice. Customers often don't come in one at a time. You want to be able to handle a rush and keep your customers happy and returning often. Guess it is all about good service isn't it? Good luck with your venture.

Thanks for the advice, seems like not much difference among commerical machines in the same price group. I'll have to talk to distributors some more to see about their servicing. I guess i'll be sticking around here in the months to come!

If you have a 2 grp unit, and it goes down, you have no espresso. If you have a 2 grp and a single, then you can use the single for the slow times and the dual for when its busy. You will always have the backup no matter what.

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